Bicentennial And Uncirculated Kennedy Half Dollars DDO / DDR Questions.

the pictures will be the only way to know for sure if they're DDR's, DDO's or just plain md's . we need them. I'm sure somebody will let you know of an app for your phone. I just use a no to expensive digital ( celestron) microscope.

Please post them one at a time close up to see what you are seeing. Post one and wait a few days then post a second one. If they are the same date, put that in the title and coin 1, 2 or whatever to keep track of them. I checked Variety Vista and they have a few listed for the Denver mint and a few for San Francisco. Wexler doesn't have any listed for 1976 for all mints. The 'Chrry Pickers Guide" Lists just two San Francisco mint doubled dies. So if you can show us what your are seeing, it would be a great help. But keep in mind that the large denomination coins suffer a lot of machine damage after the strike on them. That will look like this:





If it looks like these examples I posted, it is what I call 'Machine Damaged' the coin was struck and the machine damaged those devices after the strike. This is caused by the machine and not on the die, like what we see on doubled die. The hub that created the die was slghtly incorrect during the creation of the die. So the doubling is on the die, thus the term 'doubled die.' Those are the collectable examples. On the half dollars it is easy to find machine damaged coins. They are in high number, It is almost harder to find them without the machine damage on the halves and dollars. So they are just normal coins that have MD. Hope this helps, if not ask another question. we are here to help, not give you a bad time.

Good point. I'll add that idea on new images I create.

Here is one I've shown hundreds of times.

I have trouble with this, too.

In coop's pic, it looks like the doubled die is also thinner at the 1 and 7 o'clock points.

I just look for the roundness that shows up with the doubled die. The MD's are flat.

Of course, I have no luck in my searches. LOL

Also something else to note: color. When a normal device is contoured, we see the light to dark on the device. Note the normal device in the center. The color denotes roundness. (which most devices are make to show) On the MD example o the left, we see the MD area, not the color is all the same? Why? Because it is flat. The Machine damage that happened after the strike, made that area flattened. On the doubled die, we see in this case two sets of letters with both showing light to darkness on the bottoms of the devices.

Earle: When looking at the normal device, the MD reduces the normal size of the device. It is again flat because that area what snowplowed when the dies moved after the strike. Damaging that area on the device. You have it correct. That is the reduction I speak of. When you see them side by side with Md-normal-doubled die, it makes it easier to see what happened. The MD can vary from strike to strike. I found in two OBW rolls examples of a coins that were struck by the same dies and differed from strike to strike.

Note how they are slightly different.

Here is a side by side with a normal coin and a machine damaged coin side by side to see the reduction of the devices easier:

FINALLY! I think I got it! I now understand how you are deinfing the term "reduced." It makes a lot of sense now and I am happy to say that today when I saw a 1958 cent that was very obviously MD'd, Coops info came back to mind and I saw more in/about the MD than I had before (hope that makes sense!).

Thanks again Coop - your are one of the greatest helpers to all of us in the CCF family.